Fibre connections up to forty metres: eight days’ notice by certified email and the site opens

Forty metres from the chamber to the meter. The cable is there, the crew is ready, the customer is waiting. On runs this short the slow part is not the digging: it is the traffic order. Since April 2026 that stretch has its own procedure.

Where it is written, and from when

Decree-law no. 19 of 19 February 2026, Italy’s recovery-plan decree, amends the Electronic Communications Code (legislative decree 259/2003) in article 13(1). The original text, in force from 20 February, held only letters a) and b): letters 0a), 0b), 0c) and paragraph 1-bis arrived with conversion law no. 50 of 20 April 2026, in force from 21 April. Whoever read the decree in February did not see this part.

Letter 0c) inserts paragraphs 7-bis and 7-ter into article 49, “Civil works, excavation and occupation of public land”. Another letter deals with the technologies available at a given address.

The perimeter: forty metres

Paragraph 7-bis derogates from article 7(4) of the Highway Code (traffic inside built-up areas), from article 18(3) of decree-law 13/2023 “and from the regulations adopted by local authorities”. It applies “exclusively to customer connection works for the laying of ultra-broadband infrastructure involving excavation and cable pulling of a maximum length of forty metres”. The three conditions apply together: a stretch of backbone, or one metre more, and you are back on the ordinary route.

Note what it does not touch: the derogation lists three sources, and article 49 is not among them. The single application under paragraph 1 remains, with the deadlines in paragraph 7 — eight days for “customer connections”, ten for excavation under 200 metres. The forty metres are a new threshold, governing only the traffic-management fast lane.

The two routes in paragraph 7-bis

If the works close the carriageway, in whole or in part (letter a). Two certified emails. First, notice of the start of works to the road authority, “with at least eight days’ notice”, enclosing the technical documentation in annex 12-bis. Second, “after that notice has been sent and in any event before works begin”: the application to the bodies under article 5(3) of the Highway Code for the traffic management orders and temporary signing, with the site layout drawings of the decree of the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport of 10 July 2002 (Official Gazette no. 226 of 26 September 2002). The orders “are issued… within ten days of receipt of the application”; once that term lapses without a reply, works may start under those drawings, “provided there is no interference with what other orders adopted by the same bodies require”.

Those bodies are the road authorities “through the organs competent under articles 6 and 7”: inside built-up areas, the mayor. And the two clocks do not add up: eight days from the notice, ten from receipt of the application.

If the works do not affect the road surface, or do not close it (letter b). The notice with eight days’ warning and annex 12-bis is enough: “once the eight-day term from the sending of the notice has passed without effect, the operator may start the works”. “Without effect” is the phrase to weigh: the text does not say what happens if the authority replies.

What is left to the authority (paragraph 7-ter). It may “agree with the network operator on adjustments to the siting of the network infrastructure, for the sole purpose of ensuring the safety of the road infrastructure”, within the same eight days. But “the width and depth characteristics set by the operator itself” stand: the trench section is decided by whoever lays the cable, as in low-impact trenching.

What annex 12-bis actually is

It is the code’s set of standard forms, replaced in full by the decree of the Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy of 14 February 2025 (Official Gazette no. 58 of 11 March 2025). For excavation it holds Form H (urban areas) and Form I (non-urban), both under article 49(1): paragraph 7-bis creates no new form, it points there.

Form H calls for a 1:1,000 site plan of the route showing “sections shared with other bodies or operators”, the “‘type’ details of the ducts and structures used”, dimensioned cross-sections of ducts and road crossings. At the foot, the line that matters: “if even one of the documents listed in the Form is missing, the application will be incomplete and therefore cannot be processed”.

The other side: paragraph 1-bis and article 54

The conversion law added paragraph 1-bis: “The provisions of article 54 of the code continue to apply.” Article 54, “Prohibition on imposing other charges”, cuts both ways. Towards the authority: no charge or fee beyond those set by the code, bar the single local levy. Towards whoever lays the cable, paragraph 6: the duty “to reinstate to a proper standard” the public areas involved “within the times set by the local authority”.

The fast lane shortens the wait for a document; responsibility for reinstatement and site safety stays whole. Without an express order approving the drawings, compliant signing and the absence of interference with other traffic orders are the contractor’s checks. And an incomplete certified email is a defect nobody sees on site: it surfaces once the works are finished, when somebody asks under what title the ground was opened.

The other three lines of the same paragraph

Letter 0a) — in article 43(1) the deadline for “the authorities competent for the management of public land” to decide on installation applications falls from ninety to sixty days.
Letter 0b) — in article 44(10), on radio installations, tacit approval at sixty days now also arises “where no services conference has been convened”.
Letter a) — in article 56 the sworn interference declaration narrows: among electricity lines, only those “of the third class” under the decree of the Minister for Public Works of 21 March 1988, no longer “whatever their class”; among buried metal pipelines, only those “with cathodic protection”. And it now covers interference with electronic communications networks “or with telecommunications lines”.

What to put in writing between client and contractor

Who sends the certified emails and from which mailbox — the rule speaks of the network operator, not the contractor — and who archives dates and delivery receipts: they are the proof of title.
Who produces the site plan, the sections and the site layout drawings, and who signs them.
The check for non-interference with other traffic orders before works begin, with a written outcome.
The two reinstatement phases and who answers for settlement after closure.
What happens if the forty metres are exceeded mid-works: who stops the site and who reopens the application.

The point

A short connection is no longer hostage to a traffic order: eight days by certified email, ten for the orders. The price: the documentation becomes the title. In the specifications we write or review the paragraph 7-bis notices are a line item with an owner, a date and an archive, like the links we hand over to operators.

Do you need to bring a fibre connection across public land and are unsure which procedure applies? Talk to an engineer: half an hour to work out whether your site falls inside the forty metres.